By Emma Graves Fitzsimmons
Tribune staff reporter
CHICAGO, Ill. — Anu Solanki, the focus of an intensive police search last week, told authorities that she fled to get out of an unhappy marriage and that she regrets not telling her friends and family that she was leaving.
“She regretted getting married to him, and she wanted out of the marriage,” said Bill Cunningham, a spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Department. “She said she wanted to make a clean break and end things immediately.”
Solanki, 24, who moved to the Chicago area after her marriage in May, was reported missing Monday by her husband, Dignesh, when she disappeared soon after leaving work at a gift shop in the Westin Chicago North Shore Hotel in Wheeling.
Her reappearance came after four days of searching along the Des Plaines River. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said the search cost taxpayers about $250,000.
Dart said early Friday that Solanki appeared to have traveled with Karan C. Jani, 23, who graduated this year from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Jani also lived recently in Pennsylvania.
Solanki, 24, met with investigators on Friday night for several hours. She had been the subject of an extensive search along the Des Plaines River where authorities found her car still running on Monday.
After being released on Friday night, Solanki spent the night at a nearby hotel with family members, Cunningham said.
She told officials she never meant to make people believe she had fallen into the river.
“She was adamant in insisting this was not some sort of hoax,” Cunningham said.
Copyright 2007 The Chicago Tribune